Menu

Non-Profit Blog on Politics & Life

Tag Archives: Obama

Now that the budget cuts have been released for public viewing I am reminded that we have a Democratic president who enjoys passing Republican policies.

This budget as it stands now is the gutting of America and the road to ruin. Slashing every domestic program in sight and leaving the wasteful military spending alone is the sort of move I would expect from a Republican, but if this is indeed the budget Obama supports then it amounts to yet another huge failure of this president to stand up for progressive values.

Gutting $415 million from state and local law enforcement, $438 from energy efficiency and renewable energy, $786 million from FEMA first responder grants, $1,045 million from HIV AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD and TB prevention — all of these proposed cuts represent a desire to see Americans suffer and to see this country fail as a competitive nation.

Combining these facts with the $5 billion increase in military spending illustrates to me that the whole of Washington DC is hell-bent on turning America into a war state with permanent rampant poverty. I expect such destructive and illogical policies from Republicans, they maintain the role of the uninformed saber rattlers, but to see such a ruinous and hideous budget plan being endorsed by Democrats is disgusting.

It’s obvious to me, as things stand now, that Obama along with the Democratic Party have thrown the middle class and the American worker under the bus. All the while holding up the bloodthirsty military industrial complex and the heartless desires of corporate America as paramount.

It is nothing short of a lie that the nation is “broke” and if either party was serious about trimming waste without gutting vital social services the first on the chopping block would be the Pentagon budget.

What this country has is a tax revenue problem. As any conservative will tell you GE paid nothing in taxes last year. That is only the tip of the iceberg, but a good place to start. Closing all the corporate tax loopholes combined with raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans would free more than enough tax revenue to manage the debt while at the same time avoid gutting important government services in the process.

The failure of American Democracy is perfectly represented by the non-choice of Democrats who cave on if not directly promoting anti-American policies and Republicans who pander to racists if not openly endorse fascist laws. The choice between moderate conservatives calling themselves Democrats and extremist conservatives calling themselves Republicans is no choice at all.

I place the majority of the blame for the possible shutdown on the shoulders of House Speaker John Boehner. His inability to control his caucus led to these abortion and environment policy riders to be attached to a budget bill in the first place, which in turn created the deadlock. (You can find a comprehensive list of all the policy riders here.) To have presented such a poison pill laden budget to the Senate represented a huge lack of leadership from Boehner, and put this matter of a government shutdown on the political map as a reality instead of a mere talking point for conservative broadcasters.

Make no mistake, the GOP/Tea Party almost just furloughed thousands of Americans and put a question mark above combat troop pay all in the name of federal funding for abortion which is already covered by the Hyde Amendment and the unconstitutional attempt to strip previously passed legislation regarding not only the EPA but also the Consumer Protections Bureau, Medicare and legislation dating as far back as FDR’s school lunch program.

I see Glenn Beck as actually dangerous, and not just abrasive and dishonest like other right-wing media pundits.

I first became mildly aware of Beck when he was scathing the Bush White House, but back then he never ever called himself “conservative” and only called himself “libertarian.” Today he has fashioned himself a New Media Joe McCarthy and wants to teach the children of America a distorted and fictitious version of U.S. History.

What has actually risen to the level of public danger is centered on the TV show aspect of what he has done with his career. If anyone doesn’t already know he has mocked setting people on fire, shown a shaky rape video for no reason beyond fear mongering and to cap it all off he called a sitting president a racist on live TV.

Because television gives the illusion of credibility putting the character (I believe he is playing everyone, he said so in an interview around when he got all freaky) of Glenn Beck out there has sent horrible and extremely dangerous repercussions into the nation that can never be taken back.

Without pulling out a pack of URLs it’s quicker to just say that historically the U.S. has kind of “self-policed” this kind of extremism and incitement to violence disguised as free speech when it has happened before and always the figure that resembles Glenn Beck of today had a fall from grace. Usually getting fired. The best recent example is “Dr.” Laura getting the axe: she went into something from a KKK rally and that was the “the line.”

It sounds too simple, I know, but the most serious offender here is News Corp and Fox News.

Glenn Beck is only especially dangerous because his bosses won’t fire him no matter what “line” he crosses. If you minus Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers from this situation then Beck would have been canned for being disrespectful to a sitting president or too libel for his “here’s some violence, but don’t do violence” message he delivers regularly. Since this heartless media empire keeps him alive the kind of normal “quality controls” are not coming into play.

In the wake of the Tucson shooting, another act of domestic terrorism that the mainstream media refuses to label as such, and the moving speech delivered by President Obama there is a strong need to assess ourselves in our words and also more deeply to our mind state. This cannot, however, negate the need for people to speak their opinions about the current state of the nation.

America is on a road of a long, slow decline into moral ambiguity and a complete lack of ethics, and Glenn Beck combined with Fox News and the tea party is the first step toward this destruction of all that is good and decent in America. I don’t say these things to get a rise out of anyone or to single out Glenn Beck, but rather only because I see these words as the simple truth.

If Beck and those similar to him would only stop the incitement to violence, racism and bigotry then I would never raise issue with them beyond to merely disagree. Since this next evolution of political dialogue looks more like McCarthyism and Nazism combined I simply refuse to call it anything else.

Obama has thus far favored too moderate a position when it comes to dealing the aspects of the private sector that caused the recent market crash.

If this tax deal is part of a larger strategy that is yet to unfold, then when I have something to look at other than just this kiss on the cheek to Republicans & big business I will assess the situation from there.

The point I have is not about the entire social progressive movement, it doesn’t always have to be. It’s just my one voice, and that’s it.

And frankly I’m at my limit with Bush policies hanging around after we elected a Democrat who ran expressly against Bush policies in ’08.

It’s not any one item for me, this tax compromise was so predictable I felt compelled to call the whole thing in advance like I did for health care reform. It’s hard to be all surprised and pissed when you can read the writing on the wall and know (more or less) what course things will take in Washington. It’s that gradual and eventual effect that Obama has taken on me with all this Centrism policy instead of Progressive policy at a point in our nation’s history when truly one path exists that will get us out of this mire and not one ounce of that strategy involves doing anything the GOP or the conservatives want.

In a less dire situation for America I would herald President Obama as a great healer of a nation lost in partisan ramblings and falsehoods run amok. But since this country is on the verge of losing all of its moral fibers from mass corruption and just plain collapsing from within with nothing spent on infrastructure and nothing invested into this country in terms of the workforce or new business endeavors the path is all too clear to me. And sadly Obama continues to play hop-scotch between Democratic policies and Republican policies.

I’m convinced that just like Clinton he is Centrist Democrat and not a Liberal Progressive so really one needs to just learn to not hold it against these people that they just don’t see the situation in the same light.

The price tag is too high in my estimation. Perhaps I’m mistaken but the way I read this we get to decide if we want increased deficit into eternity with soon-to-be permanent tax cuts for the top 2% (if things follow the course I see) or if we want to start making fiscal policies that make sense in the long run and not just the short term.

Whole thing stinks like rotten meat. I’m not eating it, I don’t care of they raise JFK from the dead and put him in front of the White House Presscorp. I’m still not going to support a Bush tax policy, because I’m not into this country going to ruin in the next few years just so a random amount of capital will be injected into it right now.

We might have our priorities all backwards in this country. Education is important, no doubt. But more and more the reality is looking like education doesn’t help anyone get a job. Job training and job skills seem more important than any amount of education. We all have heard the stories of Phds who can’t get work and college graduates in the same position.

The question is: does a degree equal a job?

More and more I’m seeing the answer is: no.

That’s not to say education is not important, but perhaps one can just educate themselves whenever they have time in their life and this rush to college when right out of high school might be just a waste of time in the American Economy.

Success seems more linked to job training and attaining job skills immediately. A resume builder looks more like a series of internships and/or a long, stable work history. Not a series of degrees lined up.

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who marked his last day in the Obama administration on Friday, officially announced his candidacy for the mayorship of Chicago on Sunday.

I am a big fan of this move to get the Rahminator away from the White House and into a more local political scene where I feel he is better suited.

I don’t have this stupid personal beef that some on both sides of the political spectrum have against Rahm, but I feel is the kind of politician who is better suited to the local affairs of a mayor’s office than he is to the much larger stage of Washington DC.

While it is doubtful the Obama administration will take any hard left turns with the departure of Rahm Emanuel, I still take this as some good news coming down from Capital Hill.